Chris
Strachwitz was born to an aristocratic family in Lower Silesia, but WWII drastically
altered his destiny, turning him into the song-hunting heir of Alan Lomax. News that the advancing Soviet army was
summarily executing “capitalists” convinced his family to emigrate west. Encountering New Orleans Jazz and Delta Blues
as an American teen, he subsequently founded Arhoolie Records (named after a
form of field holler Lomax recorded) to seek out and preserve the earthy sounds
that spoke to him. Fifty years later, Strachwitz
looks back on it all in Chris Simon & Maureen Gosling’s This Ain’t No Mouse Music (trailer here), which screens
during the 2013 Margaret Mead Film Festival at the American Museum of Natural
History.
“Mouse
Music” is a vague term Strachwitz uses for the sort of slick, mass produced
music he can’t abide. His musician friends cannot really define it either, but
they know you don’t want to be it. Like
Lomax, Strachwitz did much of his recording in the field, tracking down many of
the real deal Blues, Cajun, Creole, Cajunto, and Appalachian musicians that had
slipped through the modern world’s cracks.
The first time out, he hit major pay dirt, “discovering” Mance Lipscomb.
Thanks to Arhoolie, artists like Big Joe Williams, post-“Hound Dog” Big Mama
Thornton, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Michael Doucet, and Clifton Chenier would
find a dedicated national audience.
During
his travels, Strachwitz met and collaborated with filmmaker Les Blank (to whom Mouse Music is dedicated) and became a
family friend to scores of musicians. Evidently, Strachwitz largely picked up
the Bay Area politics surrounding him, but Simon and Gosling mostly steer clear
of potentially divisive subjects.
However, they cannot resist including the story of how Strachwitz
obtained publishing rights to Country Joe McDonald’s “I Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to
Die Rag.” Evidently, the folk-rocker
needed to lay down the future Woodstock ditty quickly and was referred to Strachwitz’
living room-studio by friends. In lieu
of payment, Strachwitz accepted publishing rights, proving former Silesian
aristocrats are better businessmen than hippies.
